Bantu grinned as Krynolyn motioned excitedly for him to follow her into her considerable back yard.
Krynolyn was sweet, but a little controlling for a girl who purported to be a submissive. She was from a big political family in Buttermilk Falls, a family with a considerable amount of money, and she herself worked as a yoga instructor.
"On personal yachts." she'd told him on their first date. "It's kind of a big deal to have an actual O'Mara--from the family, right--teaching yoga. And most of these people are very nouveau riche, you understand."
"I-I guess." Bantu had said, puzzled. But he'd enjoyed the first time he'd gotten Krynolyn to strip down naked, those tiny little breasts with the oversized nipples...
He'd whipped her the first time and she'd cried easily, but when he tried to lay off a bit, she'd mumbled, "No, no...more."
Perhaps her utter submission to him had something to do with her entitled past.
Although Krynolyn had some sort of dyslexic disorder that prevented her from reading much (and she couldn't count) she'd still been admitted to Harvard because she submitted a late uncle's body cast as an "art project."
But of course, being spoiled to death leads to all kinds of trouble.
She'd toured rehabilitation centers first for drug addiction, and then for anorexia and self-mutilation and bulimia. Very neurotic.
And she was a big beggar and demander. More than once, Bantu had been forced to distract her from these annoying habits.
He'd rubbed Tabasco sauce on her clit to break her frequent masturbation habits, and had insisted she blow the mail carrier when he'd discovered she'd neglected to give the guy a Christmas tip.
"But-but Nana says that we rob them of their pride when we tip them for services...
Shouldn't they be like dogs who do it for the hunt?"
Then, of course Bantu had required that Kryn blow the mail carrier, the garbage collector, and more than a few waiters, just to ensure that she was cured of her um, elitist egalitarianism.
He'd caned her palms after noting how easily she shot other drivers the bird in traffic, and had once dragged her out of a supermarket by the hair after she'd impertinently imitated a grandmotherly cashier.
Now Bantu looked at Krynolyn and how she was waving him into her large yard, and apparently she'd built some sort of little wooden building.
Or she'd paid someone to build it.
"Do you like it? What do you think?"
Bantu came a little closer. What the fuck was this? Bantu was an old fashioned black man who had grown up in a tenement in the Narrows slum of Buttermilk Falls.
But...
He'd lived for some time in Alabama, and was this a WOODSHED?
Krynolyn saw the recognition in Bantu's eyes and she beamed at him.
"Right! You see! It's a woodshed. Remember, you told me that I was too demanding and needed to be taken into a woodshed. I didn't know what you meant, but I did Google it."
Of course she did.
Krynolyn twitched her little bottom in the sundress and opened the door to the benighted thing and they went in together.
There was wood, and an axe...of course she didn't have a wood burning stove, or even much of a fireplace, but...
"See? I got real hot when I read about how they take the young'un out to the woodshed for a whuppin." Krynolyn babbled this.
"Yes. You are, of course thirty-five years old, but you are somewhat youthful in your uh, demeanor."
Krynolyn's long brown hair fell in her face as she stared at the floor. "You don't like it, do you, Bantu?"
"I-I didn't say that. Wow, and you have lots of straps and paddles up on the wall."
Up her face came, all forgiven. "Yes! I know you need punishment implements."
"Sure, but as I recall, the point of the woodshed was, my Granddad could just pick up a piece of wood, and--"
"Plenty of that, too."
Her freckled nose twitched and Krynolyn leaned over, her dress hiking up, and picked up a thin-ish piece of maple.
"I had lots of stuff imported, since Buttermilk Falls has kind of a shitty forest."
Krynolyn pointed a red nail at the sawhorse by the door.
"You can bend-um- me over that and look! I had handcuffs bolted into the floor, since you say I squirm too much sometimes."
Bantu smiled involuntarily, and Krynolyn, mistaking this for approval, giggled and jumped up and down, clapping her hands gleefully.